The Internet and similar data communications networks have become the communications medium of choice. Recently, communications previously transmitted over circuit switched networks are being transmitted more and more over packet switched networks, such as the Internet. Thus, for example, present day art includes a variety of examples of voice telephone calls and facsimile images being transmitted as packetized data over the Internet. Unfortunately, the merging of the Internet and the public switched telephone network (PSTN) has been less than perfect. One reason is that the Internet and the PSTN have separate addressing schemes. In the Internet, a person is denoted by a logical address which may be accessed from any physical location. In the PSTN, the addresses (i.e., telephone numbers) denote physical locations (i.e., telephone extensions), which may be utilized by any person.
Some systems exist in present art which provide for the exchange of data between the PSTN and the Internet. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,428,608 provides a technique for allowing a modem to communicate over the PSTN and to separately route data calls over the Internet. Although the '608 patent provides a technique for permitting similar equipment to communicate over both the PSTN and the Internet, the '608 patent contains several major drawbacks. The most important drawback is that this patent fails to solve the problem of different addressing schemes of the two networks, and the associated burden that it places upon users.
In view of the above, there exists a need in the art for an improved technique of communicating over both the Internet and the PSTN.